5 gallon HLT - big enough?

[dcHokie]

I just scored an extra 20 qt SS kettle at a neighbor's yard sale for $1. I've got a few extra brass ball valves laying around already, so it seems a good candidate for a cheap HLT. My mash tun is the 10 gal cooler and I'm doing mostly 5 gal batches now, so I'd practically need to fill it to the lid for 5 gallons of sparge water. Man this seems like a stupid question, but is this a big enough vessel for a suitable HLT?

 

[Hammy71]

You'll be cutting it a little close. I use an 8 gallon pot for my HLT and I often fill it to the top for 5 gallon batches. I guess it depends what your pre-boil volume needs are.

 

[Catt22]

You'll be cutting it a little close. I use an 8 gallon pot for my HLT and I often fill it to the top for 5 gallon batches. I guess it depends what your pre-boil volume needs are.

+1 It all depends. I would go bigger. Not too worry, that kettle will come in handy for something sooner or later and the price was right. You could add water to the HLT as you

 

[dcHokie]

+1 It all depends. I would go bigger. Not too worry, that kettle will come in handy for something sooner or later and the price was right. You could add water to the HLT as you

Thanks guys.

Generally I'm shooting for ~ 6.5 gal pre-boil. I guess I could have a secondary kettle going with surplus sparge water to add into the HLT, but I'm batch sparging anyway so that sort of defeats the purpose of having a handy HLT...just less lifting.

I may do it anyway cause I've got a bit of a tinkering itch.

 

[wilserbrewer]

If you are tight on space in your HLT, one trick you can do is to overheat your sparge water. Bring almost 5 gallons up to say 205 - 210 degrees. Add a gallon to your mash tun and then replace that gallon w/ a fresh water addition to the HLT. The resultant temp in the HLT should still be hot enough to sparge with. This will "stretch" the capacity of the HLT as well as raise mash temp to fix conversion.

 

[dcHokie]

If you are tight on space in your HLT, one trick you can do is to overheat your sparge water. Bring almost 5 gallons up to say 205 - 210 degrees. Add a gallon to your mash tun and then replace that gallon w/ a fresh water addition to the HLT. The resultant temp in the HLT should still be hot enough to sparge with. This will "stretch" the capacity of the HLT as well as raise mash temp to fix conversion.

interesting, i don't normally mash-out, but no reason i can't, and i'm sure it might boost my efficiency a % or 2.

and incidentally, i just copied your in-bucket corona mill setup from the ugly junk thread wilser...its a great, simple design & works beautifully. thanks for the help on multiple fronts!